Mezcal: When Culture and Consumption Collide

Author(s):  
Tara Ceranic Salinas ◽  

Mezcal is a spirit distilled from the heart of the agave plant. It has been produced via traditional methods in Mexico for centuries, but recently has found popularity in the United States and other countries. The rise in demand for this artisanal product could greatly benefit the eight states in which it is legally distilled with an influx of capital from tourism and export. However, with this popularity comes outside influence and the potential for unfair business practices and cultural appropriation. This case provides a general overview of mezcal and the Mexican state of Oaxaca in which it is produced. Discussion questions are presented as well as a brief teaching note.

Author(s):  
Adrián Félix

In the context of research on the “thickening” of borders, Specters of Belonging raises the related question: How does transnational citizenship thicken across the political life cycle of Mexican migrants? In addressing this question, this book resembles what any good migration corrido (ballad) does—narrate the thickening of transnational citizenship from beginning, middle, to end. Specifically, Specters of Belonging traces Mexican migrant transnationalism across the migrant political life cycle, beginning with the “political baptism” (i.e., naturalization in the United States) and ending with repatriation to México after death. In doing so, the book illustrates how Mexican migrants enunciate, enact, and embody transnational citizenship in constant dialectical contestation with the state and institutions of citizenship on both sides of the U.S.-México border. Drawing on political ethnographies of citizenship classrooms, the first chapter examines how Mexican migrants enunciate transnational citizenship as they navigate the naturalization process in the United States and grapple with the contradictions of U.S. citizenship and its script of singular political loyalty. The middle chapter deploys transnational ethnography to analyze how Mexican migrants enact transnational citizenship within the clientelistic orbit of the Mexican state, focusing on a group of returned migrant politicians and transnational activists. Last, the final chapter turns to how Mexican migrants embody transnational citizenship by tracing the cross-border practice of repatriating the bodies of deceased Mexican migrants from the United States to their communities of origin in rural México.


2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (04) ◽  
pp. 272-276
Author(s):  
Arya Namin ◽  
Tom Shokri ◽  
Aurora Vincent ◽  
Masoud Saman ◽  
Yadranko Ducic

AbstractEsthetic surgery continues to become increasingly popular both in the United States and globally. Facial esthetic procedures in particular account for a large proportion of procedures performed. This increase in popularity will inevitably result in the number of potential complications associated with these procedures. In this review, the authors describe common complications encountered with frequently performed cosmetic facial procedures and their associated management. This article is meant as a general overview and introduction to potential complications surgeons may encounter, interested readers are encouraged to further review comprehensive subspecialty literature for more detailed discussion.


2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-197
Author(s):  
Mitchell B. Lerner

The election of Donald J. Trump unsettled many areas of U.S. foreign policy, but few more than the nation’s relationship with Korea. This article argues that the Trump administration’s vision for the world represents a stark break from the tradition of liberal internationalism and instead seeks to take the United States down a path that reflects the modern business practices of giant American corporations. A suitable label for this vision, as the following pages will show, is “Walmart unilateralism.” This framework abandons the traditional American policies of nation building and alliances based on shared ideological values. Instead, it embraces a more short-term approach rooted in financial bottom lines, flexible alliances and rivalries, and the ruthless exploitation of power hierarchies. This new approach, this article concludes, may dramatically transform the American relationship with Korea. Walmart unilateralism in Korea almost certainly will have some short-time positive ramifications for the United States, but its larger failure to consider the history and values of the people living on the Korean Peninsula may generate serious long-term problems for the future experience of the United States in the region.


2021 ◽  
Vol 95 (3) ◽  
pp. 423-446
Author(s):  
Samuel E. Backer

In the early twentieth century, vaudeville was the most popular theatrical form in the United States. Operating before the rise of mechanically reproduced entertainment, its centralized booking offices moved tens of thousands of performers across hundreds of stages to an audience of millions. Designed to gather and analyze data about both audiences and performers, these offices created a complex informational economy that defined the genre—an internal market that sought to transform culture into a commodity. By reconstructing the concrete details of these business practices, it is possible to develop a new understanding of both the success of the vaudeville industry and its influence on the evolution of American mass culture.


Author(s):  
Samuel Wex

Competing Goals in Formulating a Code of Conduct on Restrictive Business PracticesFor the past thirty years efforts to formulate and implement acceptable international norms to regulate restrictive business practices (R.B.P.’s) affecting international trade have largely failed. Yet, none can deny the necessity of such international norms in the face of the inability of national legal systems to cope with an economic order of international dimensions. The abortive International Trade Organization, as part of the Havana Charter of 1948, and the Draft E.C.O.S.O.C. International Agreement of 1953, which were originally initiated by the United States, were eventually rejected by it because “the various national policies, legislation, and enforcement procedures in this field were not sufficiently comparable.”


1992 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 529-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
Armando Solórzano

The Rockefeller Foundation's campaign against yellow fever in Mexico sought to advance the economic and political interests of U.S. capitalism. The campaign was implemented at a time of strong anti-American sentiments on the part of the Mexican people. With no diplomatic relationships between Mexico and the United States, the Rockefeller Foundation presented its campaign as an international commitment. Thus, Foundation doctors became the most salient U.S. diplomats. At the same time they made sure that the Mexican yellow fever would not spread to the United States through the southern border. The by-products of the campaign went beyond the political arena. Special techniques to combat the vectors allowed the Rockefeller Foundation's brigades to change the anti-American sentiments of the people. When the campaign ended, the Foundation had already set in place the foundation for the modern Mexican health care system. Benefits from the campaign also accrued to President Obregón, who used the campaign to strengthen his position of power. Mexican doctors adopting a pro-American attitude also allied with the Rockefeller Foundation to gain reputation and power within the emerging Mexican State.


Author(s):  
Jill E. Hopke ◽  
Luis E. Hestres

Divestment is a socially responsible investing tactic to remove assets from a sector or industry based on moral objections to its business practices. It has historical roots in the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. The early-21st-century fossil fuel divestment movement began with climate activist and 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben’s Rolling Stone article, “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math.” McKibben’s argument centers on three numbers. The first is 2°C, the international target for limiting global warming that was agreed upon at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 2009 Copenhagen conference of parties (COP). The second is 565 Gigatons, the estimated upper limit of carbon dioxide that the world population can put into the atmosphere and reasonably expect to stay below 2°C. The third number is 2,795 Gigatons, which is the amount of proven fossil fuel reserves. That the amount of proven reserves is five times that which is allowable within the 2°C limit forms the basis for calls to divest.The aggregation of individual divestment campaigns constitutes a movement with shared goals. Divestment can also function as “tactic” to indirectly apply pressure to targets of a movement, such as in the case of the movement to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline in the United States. Since 2012, the fossil fuel divestment movement has been gaining traction, first in the United States and United Kingdom, with student-led organizing focused on pressuring universities to divest endowment assets on moral grounds.In partnership with 350.org, The Guardian launched its Keep it in the Ground campaign in March 2015 at the behest of outgoing editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger. Within its first year, the digital campaign garnered support from more than a quarter-million online petitioners and won a “campaign of the year” award in the Press Gazette’s British Journalism Awards. Since the launch of The Guardian’s campaign, “keep it in the ground” has become a dominant frame used by fossil fuel divestment activists.Divestment campaigns seek to stigmatize the fossil fuel industry. The rationale for divestment rests on the idea that fossil fuel companies are financially valued based on their resource reserves and will not be able to extract these reserves with a 2°C or lower climate target. Thus, their valuation will be reduced and the financial holdings become “stranded assets.” Critics of divestment have cited the costs and risks to institutional endowments that divestment would entail, arguing that to divest would go against their fiduciary responsibility. Critics have also argued that divesting from fossil fuel assets would have little or no impact on the industry. Some higher education institutions, including Princeton and Harvard, have objected to divestment as a politicization of their endowments. Divestment advocates have responded to this concern by pointing out that not divesting is not a politically neutral act—it is, in fact, choosing the side of fossil fuel corporations.


2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-271
Author(s):  
Julia G. Young

This article reconstructs and analyzes the role of the Knights of Columbus in Mexico’s Cristero War. Founded in Connecticut in 1882, the Order quickly expanded into Mexico, establishing its first chapters there in 1905. Within two decades, the Mexican Caballeros de Colón had become one of the country’s most prominent and politically active Catholic lay organizations. During the Cristero War (1926–1929), the Mexican and U.S. Knights collaborated in order to resist the anticlerical Mexican state. In the process, the organization connected and politicized Catholics who supported the Cristero cause. By tracing the expansion of the Knights of Columbus from the United States into Mexico, and then following the Mexican Knights back into exile in the United States, this article demonstrates how transnational political activism shaped the lives of Catholics on both sides of the border. Este artículo reconstruye y analiza el papel que jugó la orden llamada Knights of Columbus en la Guerra Cristera de México. Fundada en Connecticut en 1882, dicha orden se expandió rápidamente a México y estableció sus primeros capítulos ahí en 1905. En el lapso de dos décadas, los “Caballeros de Colón” mexicanos se convirtieron en una de las organizaciones católicas laicas más prominentes y con mayor actividad política del país. Durante la Guerra Cristera (1926–1929), los Caballeros mexicanos y estadounidenses colaboraron con el fin de resistir al Estado mexicano anticlerical. En este proceso, la organización conectó y politizó a los católicos que apoyaban la causa cristera. Al rastrear la expansión de los Caballeros de Colón de los Estados Unidos a México y al seguir sus pasos de regreso al exilio en Estados Unidos, este artículo demuestra cómo el activismo político transnacional conformó las vidas de los católicos a ambos lados de la frontera.


2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 352-381
Author(s):  
E. Mark Moreno

Between 1844 and 1896, two archetypal figures on horseback known as rancheros and chinacos were disseminated through print publications. As war with the United States loomed in 1844, a relatively obscure Mexican writer depicted the ranchero as a “true national type” in a popular magazine. Eighteen years later another archetype on horseback, the chinaco, appeared in newspaper propaganda designed to provoke resistance against an imminent French advance into the Mexican interior. Later writers, such as Justo Sierra and Antonio García Cubas, imbued such figures with racialized mestizo qualities and heroic martial traits, equating mestizo blood with strength and martial capabilities that could build a more advanced Mexican state. The depiction of both figures as of mixed-race origins was a popular perception that carried over into the Porfirian years. This article traces the origins of these figures in popular reading during the years in which Mexico dealt with war with the United States, a civil war, and finally the French Intervention. Through an analysis of popular reading and intellectual commentaries, supplemented by archival research, mestizaje as a foundational concept of Mexican nationhood is traced to these early depictions. Entre 1844 y 1896, las publicaciones impresas de México difundieron dos figuras arquetípicas a caballo, conocidas como rancheros y chinacos. Cuando se avecinaba la guerra con Estados Unidos, un oscuro escritor mexicano describió al ranchero como un “verdadero tipo nacional” en una revista popular. Dieciocho años más tarde, otro arquetipo a caballo, el chinaco, apareció en la propaganda periodística diseñada para incitar a la resistencia contra un inminente avance francés hacia el interior de México. Más adelante, escritores como Justo Sierra y Antonio García Cubas infundieron tales figuras con las cualidades racializadas del mestizo y los rasgos marciales heroicos, equiparando la sangre mestiza con la fuerza y las capacidades marciales necesarias para construir un Estado mexicano más avanzado. La representación de ambas figuras como mezcla de razas constituyó una percepción popular que se mantuvo durante los años del Porfiriato. El presente artículo rastrea los orígenes de estos dos arquetipos en las lecturas populares durante los años en que México libró una guerra contra Estados Unidos, una guerra civil y, finalmente, lidió con la intervención francesa. A través de un análisis de las lecturas populares y los comentarios intelectuales, complementado con una investigación de archivo, se rastrea el origen del mestizaje en cuanto concepto fundacional de la idea de nación mexicana hasta estas representaciones.


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